This copy is for your personal non-commercial use only. To order presentation-ready copies of Toronto Star content for distribution to colleagues, clients or customers, or inquire about permissions/licensing, please go to: www.TorontoStarReprints.com

But the reality on Centre Court this week shows that the women’s game is still more diverse than that.

Article Continued Below

The players in the quarter-finals on Friday ranged in height from Dominika Cibulkova at five-foot-three and Sara Errani at five-foot-four, up to Magdalena Rybarikova at five-foot-eleven and Petra Kvitova at six-feet.

The body types of top players on the pro tour also vary wildly.

Samantha Stosur’s body is ripped with muscles, while Agnieszka Radwanska is slimmer and Marion Bartoli stockier. On the men’s side, the top 10 players start at five-foot-nine and rise to six-foot-six.

“What’s so interesting about tennis is that it requires so many different aspects of physiology, of human performance, in order to do it well. That’s why people with different body types can excel,” said Dr. Greg Wells, a University of Toronto physiologist and researcher of elite athletes.

Tennis is one of the rare sports that requires explosive power and the endurance to survive matches that typically run up to two hours for women. Those two qualities are not usually found in the same athlete.

Throw in flexibility to reach for balls, hand-eye co-ordination to hit the perfect shot down the line and the mental focus required and that opens the door to a much wider range of athlete than the popular image of the women’s power game would suggest.

“There are so many different aspects of the sport that combine to allow someone to become a champion that you’re going to get different types of players excelling at different times,” Wells said.

That doesn’t mean it’s easy, though, for the smaller players to keep up with the bigger, hard-hitting players like Serena Williams, who clocked serves over 200 km/h at the Rogers Cup.

“You have to think ... a little more tactically about what to do to find the way,” to win, said Italy’s Errani, ranked sixth in the world.

With the power players, “the ball is coming much faster, so it’s difficult to run and arrive at the balls,” in time, she said.

To do it, Errani has moved to a longer racquet, nicknamed the Excalibur, and works hard to be fitter than the rest so she can play the kind of tactical game that can win against the power players.

“Serena and the others are very strong girls, so you have to try to be perfect.”

As with just about everything in sport, there’s also a huge mental component.

“I never go on the court and think I’m small,” said Canada’s Stephanie Dubois, who made her ninth consecutive Rogers Cup appearance. She lost a close match in the first round to Fed Cup teammate Sharon Fichman of Toronto, who is all of five-foot-three herself.

“I’m not scared of them,” said the 27-year-old from Laval, who calls herself five-foot-four, with a wink. “There are advantages and disadvantages for everyone. A girl who is six-foot-two maybe has back problems or doesn’t move as well. They serve harder and hit harder ... I can run faster and be quicker.”

Indeed, some of the tallest and highest-ranked players on tour aren’t at the Rogers Cup because of injuries.

World No. 2 Sharapova is out with a hip injury and No. 3 Victoria Azarenka pulled out at the last minute with a lower back injury.

Their star power was missed in Toronto but it did make the Rogers Cup a much quieter place, as they are the most notorious of the players who grunt loudly.

But even that has a physiological benefit, said Wells.

“If you think of lifting weights in the gym and you exhale as you lift, you can lift more, you’re stronger. It’s a way for a player to increase their strength, to increase their power and hit the ball even harder than they already can,” he said.

“But I can understand how incredibly annoying people can find it when they watch the game and someone is screaming all the time.”

Female players are stronger and more athletic than ever before, but looks can also be deceiving when it comes to fitness levels.

Wimbledon champion Bartoli is one of the most unlikely on tour to be profiled in a nude photo the way Radwanska was recently in a sports magazine illustrating the fitness of athletes across all sports.

Bartoli has a stocky build and has been criticized as being pudgy, but her level of fitness must be tremendous to sustain her unorthodox playing style, Wells said.

She’s a bundle of frenetic activity on the court, hopping around and swinging between points while other players are catching their breath.

“In order to do that you’ve got to be fit,” Wells said.

Bartoli, who retired from the Rogers Cup with an abdominal injury, says her quirks on court are her way of focusing and regrouping before every point.

More from the Toronto Star & Partners

LOADING

Copyright owned or licensed by Toronto Star Newspapers Limited. All rights reserved. Republication or distribution of this content is expressly prohibited without the prior written consent of Toronto Star Newspapers Limited and/or its licensors. To order copies of Toronto Star articles, please go to: www.TorontoStarReprints.com